Are you a fan of Half-Life? Or how about Portal or Dota2? Valve, creator of videogames, owner of Steam and builder of the Valve Index virtual reality (VR) headset is an icon on the industry and also highly secretive when it comes to what it’s working on. So naturally, Valve doesn’t just let anybody wander in and around its headquarters in Seattle, Washington to see what’s going on. If you’ve ever wanted to step inside and see some of the inner workings then a charity auction is currently taking place to do just that.
Hosted on the CharityBuzz website the auction is in aid of Elemental Music, a charity which trains and nurtures young musicians at the elementary and middle school level in the Santa Monica area. Product designer at Valve, Lawrence Yang will be donating his time to give a tour of Valve’s HQ as well as providing a VR demonstration – Half-Life: Alyx on Index And it’s not just for one person, whoever wins can bring three friends along.
Yang is a user experience designer who: “has worked on virtual reality software and hardware, features for Steam, and game teams. Prior to Valve, Lawrence was part of the Human Interface team at Apple, working on system features and applications for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac,” notes the description.
Obviously there are a few stipulations, you’ll be there for an hour or so and there will be restrictions on photography – no sneaky pics allowed. It’s valid to book until 4th March 2021 but travel and accommodation aren’t included so if you’re not local maybe book a little holiday around it. Also, as the booking needs to be made at least 6 weeks in advance there’s no seeing Half-Life: Alyx early – there’s only four weeks to go.
The auction has nine days to go, ending on 4th March. You’ll need reasonably deep pockets as (at time of writing) the opening bid needs to be $500 USD – the same price as a Valve Index headset by itself (if you can get one).
Best of luck to those who do participate. For those more interested in Half-Life: Alyx, the highly anticipated videogame arrives 23rd March, also compatible with Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Window Mixed Reality headsets. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.